Pok Pok NY's Papaya Pok Pok, One of Our 100 Favorite Dishes

The simple papaya salad is a good measuring stick for the quality of a Thai restaurant--and at Pok Pok NY, the dish is a standout on the menu.

It's usually the curries, laaps, and charcoal-grilled meats that we come away from a Thai restaurant babbling about, but we use the green papaya salad as our measuring stick for the place. This dish is ubiquitous in Southeast Asia--albeit you see it in many subtly different forms, since each region makes its own version--often cobbled together on the side of a road in a mortar and pestle. Here in the States, we order it at every Thai restaurant we set foot in because if it's good, it's usually a harbinger of what's to come. The green papaya salad at Pok Pok is very good (that the eatery is named for the mortar and pestle should make this no surprise), and its success, we suspect, comes from its made-to-order simplicity: Fresh, snappy strips of green papaya, long beans, and firm chunks of tomato go into a just-muddled bath of fish sauce, tamarind, garlic, dried shrimp, peanuts, and fresh lime, which coats the produce thoroughly but not so much that your papaya wilts by the time you take your last bite. Achieving that elusive balance between tart, umami, spicy, and sweet--a combination that'll entice you to polish off an entire dish even if you're supposed to be sharing with your table--the salad is plated with a substantial chunk of a head of cabbage, which adds more crisp textural contrast if you eat it with or between bites. Pok Pok owner Andy Ricker is clear that Thai heat should not blow your face off, and this won't--but it's got enough of a spark that sticky rice is a welcome addition. And besides, that gives you a way to soak up remaining juices after the rest of your food is gone.

Later this year, we'll pen our Best of New York issue, our annual love letter to what's great in this town. When that paper hits the streets, you'll find our picks for the very best this city has to offer when it comes to dozens of cuisines, restaurants, dishes, and drinks. Until then, you can get a taste of our contenders as we count down, in no particular order, our 100 favorite dishes from around the boroughs, a list of laudable eats worth tracking down right now.